I'm sorry. I thought we paid you the big bucks to
clean up the airwavesnot to sit around, sucking
your thumbs all day. In case you haven't noticed,
reality TV is a threat so real I can taste it. Where
art thou, FCC? Are you not watching?

I first noticed how bad things were getting a couple
of months ago, when NBC introduced the sickest, most
culturally destructive show I could have imagined.
That show was called Deal or No Deal, and it starred
Howie Mandel.

I didn't think it could get any worse than that
program. But then NBC raised the bar and lowered the
common denominator. As it turns out, their latest
so-called reality show is twice as sinister. It's
called To Catch a Predator, and it stars Stone
Phillips and Ann Curry (formerly of Dateline).

Here's how it works: Each week, the show visits a
different city, sending its staff members online to
pose as young boys and girls. Tiptoeing through
chatrooms, using poor grammar and strange words like
"kewl," these staff members lure their contestantsusually
grown mento visit the set with sexual
promises. When they arrive, six packs of Corona and
condoms in tow, the men are given the Ashton Kutcher
treatment. Cameramen jump out from deep in the
shadows. The men are then scolded, and then, as a
parting gift, policemen await to wrestle them to the
ground.

This is sick.

To me, it was obvious America was headed in the wrong
direction when ABC first debuted
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? But at least back
then we were watching randomly chosen contestants
compete for unattainable sums of money. Now? I guess
fabulous cash prizes just aren't enough for us
capitalist pigs anymore. Today's reality TV
contestants compete for sex with kids that they don't
even know. What kind of message does this send to our
children?

To make matters worse, To Catch a Predator is like
that movie, Quiz Show, all over again. Only this
time it's real. The contest is rigged; contestants can
never obtain the underage sex they are after. And they
can't even save face by winning the lightning round:
Once they flee the set, cops jump them with guns
drawn. Are we supposed to be rooting for these men to
get away?

The way I see it, FCC, this country has a lot of
problems. I shouldn't have to ignore those problems,
and yet I do, because I am focusing on this show. We
should be busy fighting terror, fixing the economy,
and applying HeadOn directly to our foreheads.
Instead, we are watching Stone Phillips wheeze his way
through a talk of "Perverted Justice"all while
those greedy NBC fat cats get fatter on my lucky dime.

There's a time and a place for child pornography, and
that time and place is a Baby, One More Time-era
Britney Spears concert. Make primetime network TV safe
for grizzly crime dramas, FCC. America needs you.
Enough of this reality filth.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Cares

P.S.: I had more stuff to say to you, but I forgot
most of it, because I was really mad.

Jonathan David Morris writes from Philadelphia. He can
be reached at jdm@readjdm.com.